← IndiClock

Publish a Theme

You've created a theme you love and want to share it — with a friend, a community, or the world. This guide covers the extras that make a theme shareable and durable.

Who is this for?

You designed a theme for yourself and want to send it to a friend.
You curate art, cinema, landmarks, or cultural imagery and want a self-serve theme others can add to their IndiClock.
You run a brand, museum, sports club, or fan community and want to publish a themed clock for your audience.

Before you share

Use the schema from Customize a Theme and make sure the basics are in place:

id is unique and stable — don't change it after publishing, or people who already imported won't get updates.
version is 1.
File is under 100 KB.
All URLs are https://.

Add attribution

These fields appear in the preview screen and help people know who made the theme and how to contact you:

{
  "creatorName": "Your Name or Handle",
  "creatorContact": "mailto:you@example.com",
  "description": "A one-to-two sentence summary of the theme.",
  "sourceURL": "https://yourdomain.com/themes/my-theme.json"
}

sourceURL is optional but recommended — it's the dedupe key IndiClock uses. If someone imports the same theme twice (once from a share link and once directly), IndiClock switches to the existing copy instead of duplicating it.

Image licensing

IndiClock accepts any HTTPS image URL, but you are responsible for making sure you have the right to reference it. Safe sources:

Wikimedia Commons — most images are free-use. Use the thumb URL: .../1200px-File.jpg.
The Met Museum Open Access — metmuseum.org/art/collection.
NASA — public-domain imagery.
Your own photographs or content — host on your own site.

Fair-use posters, news-agency stills, and rights-restricted photos should not be embedded as URL. Instead, set URL to the Wikipedia (or equivalent) page and IndiClock will display the page instead of the image:

{
  "title": "Vidheyan (1993)",
  "URL": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vidheyan",
  "referring_page": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vidheyan"
}

donate_to is optional but encouraged — if your images come from Wikipedia, point to https://wikimediafoundation.org/give/ so users can support the source.

See the Acceptable Use Policy for what's not allowed.

Pick a durable host

For a theme you want to keep shareable, avoid hosts that may delete the content (like temporary pastebins). Good options:

GitHub Pages — free, uses your domain or username.github.io.
Your own website — full control.
Netlify or Cloudflare Pages — free tier, custom domain.
JSONBin.io or GitHub Gist — fine for casual sharing. Don't delete the gist/bin if you want the theme to keep working.

Avoid URL shorteners — IndiClock only follows a single redirect.

Share the link

Once your .json is live, share the URL. Two shapes:

Direct URL — https://yoursite.com/themes/my-theme.json. The recipient pastes into Add Theme, or taps it from Messages / Mail (opens the preview directly).
Wrapped share link — https://indiclock.com/i/?theme=<URL-encoded>. Opens a landing page with an "Open in IndiClock" button, plus an App Store fallback for people who don't have the app yet. Example:
```
https://indiclock.com/i/?theme=https%3A%2F%2Fyoursite.com%2Fmy-theme.json
```

Test before you post

Before sending the link around:

Paste your URL into Settings → Themes → Add Theme on your own device. Confirm it imports cleanly.
Share the link to yourself via Messages and tap it — confirms the tap-from-link path works.
Try the wrapped https://indiclock.com/i/?theme=... version too.

The IndiClock test page has working examples of every link shape IndiClock supports.

Updating a published theme

IndiClock re-imports by URL. If someone has already imported your theme, updating the JSON at the same URL is safe, but existing users won't see the update until they re-import. To force everyone onto a new version, bump the file name (my-theme-v2.json) and share the new URL.

Questions? See Support & FAQ.